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Placer County IT seeks cloud migration, stronger cybersecurity and limited AI rollout in FY 2025–26 budget
Summary
County CIO Jared Thiessen told supervisors the IT budget emphasizes cloud migration, cybersecurity upgrades, disaster recovery tests, broadband work and a limited, chargeback-based Microsoft Copilot pilot budgeted at $45,000 for IT in 2025–26.
Jared Thiessen, Placer County chief information officer, told the Board of Supervisors on April 30 that the department’s 2025–26 budget focuses on moving applications to the cloud, strengthening cybersecurity and improving network resiliency. Thiessen said Workday and Microsoft cloud products already host many county services and the county has moved email and backups to cloud infrastructure.
The IT presentation emphasized several near-term priorities: upgraded endpoint and email security, a modernized firewall architecture, disaster-recovery testing that can restore systems within 24–48 hours, and continued migration of on-premises applications to vendor-hosted cloud services. “We’ve upgraded our endpoint security for all of our laptops and desktops,” Thiessen said, and he credited the department’s security staff for improvements after an organizational change that installed Robert Lee as chief information security officer.
Thiessen described broadband expansion across several towns (Sheridan, Loomis, Newcastle, North and South Auburn and others) and said planning is under way for a Federal Funding Agency (FFA) grant to serve Applegate, Alta, Cape Horn and other pockets. He also said the county will bring an update to the board on broadband in August.
On artificial intelligence, Thiessen described a measured approach. The county has tested Microsoft’s Copilot inside IT and included $45,000 for Copilot licensing in the IT budget for 2025–26; broader deployment would be via chargebacks to departments. He described Copilot as “analogous to ChatGPT” and said the county will limit access because the add-on licensing is costly and the department must ensure security controls before giving access widely.
Public-safety radio upgrades were also highlighted: the county approved APX Next radios to improve in-building coverage, with a radio-network upgrade scheduled by July and device deployment later in the summer. Thiessen said the system will support both cellular and Wi‑Fi connections and will address Tahoe-area coverage challenges.
Supervisors asked how cloud services would withstand a localized event such as an EMP; Thiessen said major cloud providers have replicated data centers and that resiliency depends on network access to those sites. He and Melissa Spack, IT fiscal manager, also described a $245,000 increase in the IT infrastructure program, including $200,000 added to Microsoft enterprise licensing and the $45,000 Copilot line in IT’s budget.
The board heard specific questions about the digital county survey used to benchmark IT performance; Thiessen said the county ranks highly but lacks access to competitor detail reports. Supervisors expressed support for IT’s security work and for an evidence-based rollout of AI tools.
